New Seth Green & Matt Senreich Interview About Star Wars Detours

Over at IGN, there is a great interview that was conducted with Seth Green & Matt Senreich about Star Wars Detours, where they talk about the pacing of the show, how Luke and Obi Wan will be portrayed, and how there are many ways Star Wars can be enjoyed by people of all ages. You can check out the interview below.

IGN: As far as an episode of Star Wars: Detours is concerned, is it going to be that sort of quick-cutting, Robot Chicken skit style?

Seth Green: No. This is my favorite thing about it. I wouldn’t say it’s serialized, but it’s episodic. It’s not sketch-based, it’s not short form. It’s like a sitcom.

Matt Senreich: Yeah, the characters evolve over the series.

Green: That’s probably fair to say.

Senreich: I like to always say, “Where it starts, I know where these characters will end up much further in the future.”

Green: There’s just so much misinformation. Every time we open our mouths or show anybody anything, it gets really twisted and distorted and interpreted hilariously. So I try to correct — like a surgeon — and not even worry about the rest of it.

IGN: Luke was conspicuous by his absence in the footage I saw at your first panel at Star Wars Celebration.

Senreich: Oh, he’ll be there.

Green: Oh yeah, but Luke is a teenager that lives in the desert with his f**king uncle. [Laughs] He’s not the coolest kid on the block.

Senreich: Yeah, we talked about it on our Saturday panel [Editor’s Note: There were two panels for Detours at SWCVI – one Friday, one Saturday]. He’s the guy who Obi-Wan is constantly trying to go see and teach that he has the universe to help save, and every time he tries to go there… Well, maybe that wasn’t the first time Obi-Wan had attempted to get to Luke.

Green: That’s our thought, is that Obi-Wan never knew what the correct timing was to approach that sort of prophecy in the desert. So each time, he attempts it and it goes horribly awry. He’s just like [waving hand as if using the Force], “None of this ever happened.” And Luke starts overtime developing real gaps in his memory, and he wakes up in places and doesn’t understand why his clothes are askew. “What happened here?”

IGN: As you well know, there is a sect of Star Wars fandom who, as adults, want everything with the name Star Wars on it to be “badass” or “cool”. So what would you say to those people?

Senreich: We want Star Wars to be badass and cool, too!

Green: Yeah, we love badass and cool Star Wars, but there are different ways to enjoy the stuff you love. If everything looks the same, then you won’t notice the variety. Star Wars is an international and global brand that is expressed in millions of forms, literally. People laughed along with us at Robot Chicken, which was a parody of Star Wars. I would find it strange for them to not accept a sincere comedy that comes from the creator of Star Wars.

Geoff Johns: I also think that — not that I’m a part of this interview! — but you look at Batman: Brave and the Bold and The Dark Knight Rises. The greatest thing about Batman is that it can be for everybody of all ages. Why deny any age group that if the character works?

Green: Why deny the mythology? That’s all it really is. We’re determining what legends and myths we want to perpetuate onto our kids and next generations. How many times has Shakespeare been interpreted and reinterpreted? We get so precious about our intellectual property because it’s experience-based. It’s something that you felt, and you don’t feel that someone else could have the exact same experience unless they experienced it how you did. That’s just not accurate.

Green: And they love it just as much as you do. They need it because it’s theirs.

Senreich: When we were working on the third Star Wars [Robot Chicken] special, we had three interns telling me about how the prequels were better than the originals. I thought they were joking at first, but we got into a long conversation. We were all debating it, how the first ones were boring to them. I was trying to understand, and I just couldn’t because, again, it just wasn’t for me, which is okay. I accept that, and I love The Clone Wars. I know Clone Wars isn’t necessarily for me, but I love it.

Green: Did you see that [new Clone Wars] trailer, dude?

IGN: Yeah, it’s terrific.

Green: Oh my God! It’s so awesome! I’ve seen a couple of those Mandalore episodes. It is better than you think. You talk about your hardcore, badass Star Wars… Dave Filoni and George Lucas are giving you those. They’re giving you Robotech in the Star Wars universe. It’s awesome.

IGN: Robot Chicken airs on Adult Swim, and the content can reflect that. With the humor in Detours, is it going to be a little more family-friendly?

Senreich: George said it best: it’s a little young for the older people and a little old for the younger people.

Green: It’s so undefined for the audience right now. We know exactly what the show is, but how people will interpret it is entirely up to them. When people first saw The Simpsons, they didn’t have anything to measure it against. Star Wars is already Star Wars. No matter how you interpret it, even if it’s coming from the guy who made it up, somebody’s going to have a problem with it. And it’s all right. We’re making the show as awesome as we can, and we love Star Wars.